Protective
by DittyWrites
Summary: The Four Times The Men In Caitlins' Life Helped Her and The One Time She Saved Them All. Features Ronnie, Cisco, Wells and Barry. (As an aside, i'm going to expand the Wells mini into a full-length fic in the near future).
1. Ronnie

She had received the phone call offering her a job at STAR Labs exactly one week ago and honestly, it was the longest week of her life. After graduating at the top of her classes she was naturally drawn towards STAR Labs as a potential employer but the speed at which they accepted her was amazing. She was absolutely floored but her excitement also came with a great panic. What would life at STAR Labs be like? Would she make friends? Would there be other women there? The majority of Caitlins female peers had applied for jobs but as far as she was aware she was the only one who had been accepted at STAR Labs.

She walked into the massive glass doors at the entrance of the building and paused. She didn't actually know where she was supposed to be going. She had to meet with Dr Harrison Wells, the resident genius, as he was her assigned mentor and boss. She made her way slowly over to the reception to make an inquiry but the receptionist was missing. Caitlin sighed and checked her watch. She had literally ten minutes until the meeting was scheduled and being late on her first day was NOT the first impression she had in mind.

She stood at the reception for another minute. She began to bite at her lower lip and she could feel her stress levels rising when a man appeared from nowhere beside her.

"Hey there." The man said politely, "You look worried. Can I help you?"

She looked at the man. He was tall, muscular-built and incredibly handsome. "Uhh yeah actually. I don't suppose you could tell me where I could find Dr Harrison Wells? I have a meeting with him like now." She said in a rush.

He smiled and replied, "Yeah. I can take you straight to him. Follow me." He led her to the elevator and continued. "So Dr Well huh? Are you the newest member of the team? I think I remember him mentioning something about a newbie." He winked. "I'm Ronnie. Ronnie Raymond."

He held his hand out and she shook it quickly. "Hello Ronnie Raymond. I'm Caitlin. Caitlin Snow. And yeah, today is my first day. Hence the being lost thing."

Ronnie laughed as the elevator doors opened and he allowed Caitlin to leave first. "That's okay. I couldn't find my way around here for the first month. That's a lie actually, I still get lost in this damn maze." Caitlin giggled while he led her towards the main lab.

"Well I hope I can get used to it quickly." She responded. They arrived outside an office door and Ronnie knocked politely. The door was opened by a dark-haired man in a suit who Caitlin instantly recognised as Dr Wells.

"Hi Dr Wells, I found the newbie in the lobby and decided to deliver her personally." Ronnie winked at Caitlin. "She's nice so try to keep her with us, eh boss?" He spoke directly to Wells, giving him a cheeky grin.

"Thank you Ronnie." Wells replied. Ronnie nodded and waved goodbye before disappearing around the corner. Caitlin watched him go and decided that if the people here were as helpful as him then she just might be able to make it through. 


	2. Cisco

One of the only drawbacks of working in a male-dominated job was the fact that it was a male-dominated job. Caitlin had been forced to deal with a lot of sexist remarks throughout her entire academic career and while STAR Labs was a definite improvement, it still wasn't without problems. Like Louis.

Louis had started just before Caitlin and the man was the epitome of everything Caitlin hated. He was self-entitled, incredibly rude and very sexist. He had only managed to keep his position at STAR Labs because he was one of the most promising future engineers they had. The only other person who irritated her on the same level was Hartley but at least he was just rude, not sexist. Since she had started a few months previously, Caitlin had regularly felt Louis watching her and it made her very uncomfortable but since he wasn't actually doing anything she was at a loss for what to do. He had never made an effort to speak to her but she had overheard her name being mentioned by him more than once while he was talking to others.

She was working on a private venture with Cisco when Louis came through the lab doors. "Hey Cisco." He greeted while blatantly ignoring Caitlin, even though she was practically standing between them. "Do you have any spare copies of the blueprints for the new lab structure?"

Cisco glanced at Caitlin, who had a completely impassive face, and replied. "Uhh yeah sure. Gimme a sec and i'll see if I have some here." He looked underneath the workbench and pulled out a file before holding it out for Louis to grab. Louis reached past Caitlin and took the file in his hand and Caitlin gasped when she felt his hand deliberately brush her chest. Acting on pure instinct, she slapped the file out of his hands and sent it tumbling to the floor.

"Oops." He smirked as he bent down to pick them up. Caitlin was fuming, she opened her mouth to give the bastard a verbal assault when Cisco interrupted from beside her.

"Hey Louis, can you come take a look at these wires for me?" Cisco asked in a deceptively sweet voice.

"Sure." He replied and moved over to Cisco. He was fiddling about with the wires when Cisco winked at Caitlin before flicking the switch in his hand. Louis squeaked and collapsed onto the floor in a small and twitchy ball as he received a very considerable electric shock.

"Cisco!" Caitlin admonished as she laughed at the prone man. "That wasn't necessary." Cisco muttered something under his breath in Spanish and if the look on his face was anything to go by, it wasn't polite.

He smiled brightly at her before countering with a cheery "Aww come on Caitlin! What are friends for?" She rolled her eyes at him but pulled him into a hug anyway.


	3. Wells

Caitlin was excited. She was about to pull up to her first official conference as a scientist for STAR Labs. Wells had personally invited her to accompany him to this conference on 'Genetics and Bio-Engineering' and she was eager to accept. The event was being held in Coast City and they were just arriving at the expensive hotel which it was being hosted in. Wells had spent the taxi journey inquiring as to how she was fitting into life at STAR Labs and if she had any thoughts for future projects. She had been flattered that he considered her opinions important and she found the journey very pleasant.

They pulled up outside the hotel and Wells sighed as he glanced out the window. Caitlin followed his gaze and saw a large group of protesters. Some had signs and banners protesting scientific meddling in genetics while others had just made signs which condemned all the attending scientists to hell. "Shall we?" Wells said, grimacing slightly as he realised that they would have to make their way through the crowd to reach the entrance.

Caitlin nodded and left the car. As soon as the crowd noticed her STAR Labs badge they started to boo and hiss insults at her. She felt Wells standing behind her so she straightened her back and tried to make her way through while avoiding eye contact with the people around her.

She was almost inside when she heard a voice hiss viciously into her ear, calling her a whore of Satan or something equally rude. She was so taken aback by it that she made the mistake of pausing slightly. An explosion of pain burst across Caitlin's face and she gasped and made a small pained noise. It took her a second to realise that the insult-hissing protester had struck her. Her hand flew to her cheek and she felt tears well up in her eyes.

Standing just behind Caitlin and dealing wit a few nasty protesters of his own, Wells had turned just in time to see Caitlin being attacked. He was absolutely furious. It was one thing for the protesters to stand and scream ignorant slogan but by touching one of his staff especially one as gifted and kind as Caitlin, they had gone too far. He was forced to immediately duck however as the same protester had decided to take a swing for him too. Dodging that punch, he retaliated brutally with one of his own and it made contact with the mans' chest and sent him sprawling to the ground.

Stunned, Caitlin watched as Wells decked the man who had assaulted her. Her surprise turned to worry though as she watched another man help the fallen protester up and both made their way towards Wells again. Shifting himself slightly so he was positioned in front of Caitlin, Wells tensed up in preparation of a fight. Caitlin felt relief flood through her as a handful of security guards suddenly appeared beside them and intercepted the two aggressive men. Three guard seized the men while the fourth led Caitlin and a still agitated Wells inside the building.

When they returned to STAR Labs the following day, it took her just under an hour to convince the skeptical Ronnie and Cisco that Dr Wells had actually punched out a man in her defense.


	4. Barry

Barry arrived at STAR Labs earlier than usual which made a pleasant change. He had woken up in a particularly good mood and decided to bring in some tasties for his crime-fighting team. Walking into the main lab while juggling two boxes of donuts he called out "Hey guys! Anyone want some donuts?" He pulled up short when he spotted Caitlin sitting alone at the main desk with tears down her face

"Hey Caitlin." He put the boxes down and made his way over to her. "What's the matter?" He asked gently.

"Hey Barry." She replied softly giving him a watery-eyed smile. "I'm okay I just had a bit of bad news. My grandfather passed away last night."

Barry pulled her into a hug and said "Aww Caitlin. I'm so sorry. Do you want me to take you home or-"

Caitlin cut him off. "No no no. I'm okay. I don't want to just sit in my apartment all day and feel sad. I'd rather try to get some work done and i'll head out to Starling City tomorrow to see what the funeral arrangements are." Barry nodded and pulled up a chair beside her.

"So what was your grandfather like?" Barry asked.

She smiled and wiped her eyes. If there was anyone she felt comfortable discussing this with it would be Barry. He had lost so much in his life. She answered. "He was a great man. I haven't had as much contact with him recently as I would have liked but he was amazing. I used to stay with him and my grandma most weekends when I was young and he would go out every Saturday morning to but me ice-cream from Paciatos. The ice cream place on Monroe Street?" Barry nodded. "It used to be the highlight of my week." She smiled at the memory.

Barry was about to ask her another question when his phone started ringing. He picked it up and answered. "Hey Joe...uh huh...okay. Be there in a second." He hung up and looked at Caitlin. "I'm so sorry Caitlin but I need to go to work. If you need me or want to talk to someone then just phone me and i'll appear in a flash." He winked as he stood up and she snorted and watched him leave.

The rest of her day went by without incident. Wells and Cisco had both gifted her with condolences cards and Cisco had also brought her in a bag filled with her favourite kind of chocolates. Wells had told her she was welcome to take as much time off as she needed and that if she needed support he was available. The kindness the two men were showing her made her day a little better and by the end of the day she felt considerably better.

She was the last one to leave and as she made her way to her car she was surprised to see a small package lying on the bonnet. She opened it and laughed as she pulled out two huge cartons of ice cream from Paciatos. The small note attached to it read 'Your grandfather had a great taste in ice cream'. Caitlin giggled and placed the ice cream on her passenger seat. She loved the men in her life.


	5. Caitlin

As far as plans go, this one had turned from awful to a complete disaster in record time. Captain Cold was at it again and he had successfully managed to steal a collection of ancient works of art which were valued at over $300 million. They managed to track him down in Starling City which was odd for him since he didn't actually like leaving Central City. As a courtesy, Barry had phoned Oliver to let him know the situation and Felicity had overheard and offered to help. Caitlin volunteered to go to the 'Arrow Cave' to do some detective work. These factors, as well as the fact that Ronnie was back in town for a visit meant that it should have been easy to apprehend Snart.

So the fact that Cisco, Wells, Ronnie and Felicity found themselves being held at gunpoint by Captain Cold in his hideout was extremely embarrassing. Barry was lying a few feet away totally unconscious and how that had happened nobody was even sure. One minute he was dashing about it typical Barry fashion and the next he was on the floor. With Barry out the game, the responsibility of saving the day kind of fell to Ronnie which was difficult as Snart's Cold Gun could do some very serious damage to him.

"So we seem to have a bit of a problem here?" Snart drawled as he slowly moved his gun between the four of them.

"Not really." Cisco ventured. "We could uh just take the Flash and leave and you could not shoot us with my own damn gun."

"My gun." Cold countered. "And that's not an option. I kind of like not being in prison and I know the second that he", he pointed at Barry, "wakes up then you'll regroup and come back for me."

"That's because you're a criminal Snart and should be jailed." Ronnie offered and Cold turned his eyes on him.

"As an aside, you should meet my friend Mick. I have a feeling you might be match made in heaven." Ronnie looked confused while Cisco let out a soft snort.

Cold made a sudden 'huh' noise and collapsed to the floor. The entire team was stunned and they started to look at each other with questioning looks. A noise in the corner alerted them as Caitlin emerged from the darkness with her handbag in one hand and a tiny metal gun in the other. There was a few seconds silence before Cisco spoke. "Okay then. That happened. Hi Caitlin."

"Caitlin!" Felicity squealed and launched herself at the other woman. "Thank god. I was convinced I was going to become a human icicle."

Caitlin smiled and hugged her back. "Hey guys. Looked like you could use a hand. Plus I owe Snart one from that time him and his pyromaniac friend kidnapped me."

"Nice to see you Dr Snow?" Wells smiled kindly at her. "Care to explain how this happened?" he gestured to the collapsed man.

Caitlin held up the small gun in her hand. "I tracked your locations after you all stopped getting in contact with me. Cisco made me gun after Snart and Rory kidnapped me. It's a mini-dart gun which can fire up to six hypodermic needles with enough tranq in them to take down an elephant." She smiled proudly. "Joe also took me to the shooting range a few times so I could a decent aim."

"Hot damn Dr Snow!" Cisco laughed as he high-fived her. "You might just overtake Barry as my new favourite hero!"


End file.
